


judgment of the eye

by gealbhan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Childhood Friends, Gen, Glasses, Humor, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Oikawa Tooru Wears Glasses, minor injury, some angst what else do you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8474188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: “There's a very big difference between 3D and 2D.” Tooru adjusts his real glasses again, where they hang crooked (given he's pulled them on and off about ten times, enough to stir a headache) off his nose. “On one hand”—he holds up the 3D glasses—“I can watch it in 3D but not actually be able to make out anything. On the other—”Iwaizumi mutters something, which is to say a string of incoherent words, half of those Tooru can make out swear words.“On the other hand,” says Tooru, louder, “I can watch the 2D version and see things but. 2D.”(Or — Oikawa + glasses problems.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> \+ title is from a shakespeare quote: "beauty is bought by the judgment of the eye", from _love's labour's lost_.
> 
> \+ lmao i honestly straight-up cried at tooru in the latest episode like.. changes all backgrounds to glasses!tooru. anyways, i wear glasses (not contacts though) so like 90% of this is derived from my own experiences. there's also the theory that they're fake glasses since he's like, hiding from both karasuno and shiratorizawa as well as 99% of the other spectators, but there's clearly glass there and i doubt anyone would go _that far_ for fake glasses. (then again, this is oikawa tooru.) plus, nearsighted because he's in the very top of the stands so he wouldn't need glasses for farsightedness up there.
> 
> \+ (listen i've spent the past week thinking about this,, like oikawa dealing with #glassesproblems is my go-to "feel better" thing now. also this is barely edited i'm sorry if it's mostly incoherent)

“Oh my god,” says Iwaizumi, for what Tooru notes is at least the fourth time, “what's the damn _difference_?”

Tooru glares from underneath semi-transparent neon blue and red. “There's a very big difference between 3D and 2D.” He adjusts his real glasses again, where they hang crooked (given he's pulled them on and off about ten times, enough to stir a headache) off his nose. “On one hand”—he holds up the 3D glasses—“I can watch it in 3D but not actually be able to make out anything. On the other—”

Iwaizumi mutters something, which is to say a string of incoherent words, half of those Tooru can make out swear words.

“On the other hand,” says Tooru, louder, “I can watch the 2D version and see things but. _2D_.”

Iwaizumi stares at him.

“It's a very difficult decision,” says Tooru, sure two-thirds of the other customers in the main lobby are glaring at him.

“Why didn't you just wear your contacts?” says Iwaizumi. “Or, better yet, not drag me along to listen to your complaining about a movie I didn't even want to watch.”

Tooru scowls, and once again pops his regular glasses off. When he slips the 3D glasses back on, he gets a little dizzy. “My contacts, as you should remember, are dried out.”

“Right,” says Iwaizumi, deadpan, “because you wore them for too long again.”

“Possibly,” says Tooru. Iwaizumi continues to stare. “Fine, yes.” He switches out the glasses again, and squints before he drops the 3D glasses back in their bin. “Well, I guess I could always come back. Without”—he sticks out his tongue—“ _fun-killers_ who don't appreciate _works of art_.”

“Whatever you say.”

(He complains about not seeing the 3D version this time the entire way into the theater, but he isn't complaining when they're actually inside the theater—even if it _is_ a little too loud for his self-inflicted headache—and Iwaizumi, despite his grumbling, locks one arm over Tooru's shoulders.)

  


Tooru gets glasses when he's in his last year of elementary school.

In the doctor's office, his mother explains how she's nearsighted and thinks he's the same, since he's been getting headaches and having to squint while in class and playing volleyball. The doctor keeps throwing around big words that Tooru doesn't understand, so he plays with a keychain on his bag, heavy on his side with his textbooks, until he gets settled into a chair and has to read off a chart of letters. He doesn't really understand, and his mother hadn't really explained, but he rattles off what he can read and chews his lips and flushes when he can't. Either way, he picks out a set of frames—kind of overwhelmed at how many there are, he just grabs one of the first pairs he sees and sticks with them—and has them in a week.

Of course, all his classmates notice. A group of girls who always blush when he's around kind of frown at him. Two boys in the basketball club call him “four-eyes”, but it's in a casual manner and they don't seem to care later on. Iwaizumi barely blinks, having seen them at his house over the weekend.

(And Tooru doesn't say it to anyone because he's sure they wouldn't understand, but it's _something_ riding home in the car and being able to make out individual leaves. It's something to look up at people and make out the details of their faces, the sweat clumped around their zig-zagging hair and exact dark hazel of their eyes.

It's also then that Tooru realizes he might have a _very serious problem_.)

  


He's practicing his jump serve again. He's gotten better at it since he's been practicing for close to a year, but every now and then he still messes up.

This is one of those times. Tooru lifts the ball, lowers his stance, and tosses—

And he jumps too late or tosses too low or _something_ because it just comes smacking back down on his head. Or, more accurately, smack-dab in the middle of his face, lifted to follow the toss. He only has a second to react before the ball crunches against his nose, and his glasses clatter to the ground. His nose might or might not be bleeding, but he can't tell in wake of the oncoming headache and throb in the bridge of his nose.

Iwaizumi, of course, thinks it's hilarious, abandoning his practice at receives to clutch his stomach in laughter.

(“Iwa-chan, it wasn't _that_ funny,” whines Tooru when they walk home from the park. There's dried blood on his shirt and, when he gets home, his mother will stare at his semi-bent nose and crooked, half-broken glasses and say _do I want to know?_

Iwaizumi kicks up gravel. In the few minutes that have passed, Tooru using his collar as a makeshift tissue and Iwaizumi calling him _a gross dumbass_ , he's gone a little quieter and glances at Tooru a little more often. “Nah,” he says, “but your expression was.”

Tooru doesn't know if he wants to know what that means or not.)

  


It's not like Tooru hasn't noticed that his swarm of admiring girls who twirl their pigtails and twiddle their thumbs whenever he's in a twenty-foot vicinity has diminished since elementary graduation. It's more that he doesn't care whether or not he has a budding fanclub, despite the jealous sighs from other boys and flippant comments about his own admirers he makes.

Either way, it's only an issue when he's studying for an upcoming social studies test in the library and takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes, a tension headache building behind his eyelids. Almost at once, some girl from one of his classes pops into the seat across from him, hand against her cheek. She has dark hair that brushes her neck and wears contemplative expression along with gobs of eyeliner. Tooru glances up in question, and then slides his glasses on.

The girl almost pouts. “You look better without your glasses on, you know,” she says.

Tooru just hums and looks down to his textbook. After a few minutes of him ignoring her to take notes, she leaves, but her words stick to him the rest of the day.

(By the year's end, Tooru has swapped out his ugly, wide-framed glasses for several sets of contacts that he wears into second year. Everyone except Iwaizumi seems to take note, though Tooru does note him giving him odd looks sometimes, and his fanclub builds back up again. It's easier to play volleyball when he's not in constant fear of the glasses getting targeted and knocked off, even, so he doesn't feel that conflicted about it.)

  


Tooru's tired, he's misplaced his contacts case somewhere, and he just wants to get out of the rain. There's water clinging to his glasses, since he'd also forgotten an umbrella and Iwaizumi had assumed he'd bring one, so they're both sopping wet and wandering the streets of Sendai, Tooru having to wipe off his glasses every thirty seconds. Tooru can't see anything whether he's wearing them or not wearing them, so there's no point, really, but—

Iwaizumi tugs his sleeve. “I see the restaurant over there,” he says.

Tooru follows, still scrubbing desperately at his glasses. Of course, since he doesn't have the cloth he'd abandoned years ago on hand, he's scrubbing with the bottom of his jacket, made of scratchy material that hurts more than it helps. He slips the glasses back on just as they step in, and the heat of the place—though appreciated by the rest of him, dripping with raindrops—rushes steam into his lenses.

Goddammit.

(By the time they're seated, the steam has faded, but then their also-hot food comes and as soon as Tooru lifts a spoonful of soup his glasses fill with steam again. The way back home, he's still scraping rain off his glasses every few steps they take.)

  


It's in his first year of high school that Tooru forgets his refill of contacts for the first time and has to dig out his long-abandoned glasses from the tons of boxes in the closet. His mother watches from the doorway, clicking her tongue and checking her watch. Though half of his closet is now rearranged, Tooru goes to school wearing a pair of glasses he's going to have to figure out a workaround for in club.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa exchange twin looks of disbelief and then snicker. Iwaizumi just blinks and says, “What happened to your contacts?”

Tooru, instead of telling the truth, says, “Didn't want to wear them.”

Iwaizumi doesn't look like he believes him, but shrugs and turns back to the homework he's trying to pretend he isn't just now finishing. The four part for their individual first classes soon, and utter hell in the form of his grabby classmates is unleashed on Tooru.

“I didn't know you wore glasses, Oikawa-kun,” says one girl who's his self-proclaimed _Number One Fan_ , though she's battling at least ten other girls for that position. She bats her eyelashes and leans back over her desk.

Tooru flashes her a winning smile bound to make her stop asking questions or, even better, faint and have to be taken to the nurse's office, thus calling off class and bringing Tooru one class closer to not having to wear these. It's a Friday, so he's antsy enough about leaving already. “Ah, yeah! I've been wearing contacts since middle school.”

She, as expected, goes a brilliant shade of red and faces front again, scribbling something in her notebook. For all Tooru knows, it could be something on the board or the personal information she's just received about her _hero_ , as she and the rest of the unofficial (so they say) Oikawa Tooru Fanclub tend to call him.

Before the class is over, more than five people have commented, and more than three have tried on the glasses (only some asking, and few of those being polite about it) and then commented about how bad his vision must be. Tooru, without saying a single rude word, grits his teeth and forces a charming smile.

(Later, he scrubs the glasses down and tries to crook the stretched-out arms back into place on his own. It doesn't work out well—one arm pops off, the other hangs dangerously on its hinges, and in the end he has to get a new pair when he gets a new prescription _just in case_ , says his mother with a sharp look.)

  


Half of Tooru's joints feel like they're going to fall off and he's pretty sure he broke something in his leg. _You might be a super-setter, but like hell I'm going to let you slack off because you've got talent,_ said the team captain at his new university, and shit if he didn't deliver on that. It's only a few weeks into this semester, but the bruises on Tooru's arms and already-weak knees outnumber ones from entire years before.

He just wants to lay down and watch _Star Wars_ until he falls asleep thirty minutes into _A New Hope_ , so he tosses the DVD case at Hajime (who catches it without even looking) and goes into the bathroom to take out his contacts and put his glasses on. When he flops onto the couch in front of the TV, though—

—his glasses push up and hang over half of his face, crooked over his nose and nudging his face into an awkward position. He flails for a moment, trying to adjust the glasses and his entire position for several stressed seconds (kicking Hajime in the leg not once, not twice but a grand total of four times), before he ends up just throwing the glasses onto the side table.

(It's not like he hasn't seen _A New Hope_ enough times to recount at least eighty-percent of the dialogue and staging, anyways.)

(Hajime doesn't stop laughing until Tooru falls asleep—just when Luke and Obi-Wan meet Han, though he's a little fuzzy before that too—and, quite possibly, even after that.)

**Author's Note:**

> \+ please leave kudos and/or leave a comment if you liked!!
> 
> \+ i only post like twice a week but if u wanna cry over glasses!tooru with me i'm on [tumblr](http://spaaaaarrow.tumblr.com/)


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